I am doing stuff I swear!

I'm not dead, and I'm not pregnant. I'm working on a dress that I swear is never ending, I can only hope this is just the time before something awesome happens.

Just in case you are here just for some finished work here is a skirt I whipped up a few weekends ago.

It's one of my favorite skirt patterns ever. I used every last inch of leftover cape fabric, which is like thick dress pants. I even added some hem lace for cuteness sake.

OK, now back to my dress. I've been doing simple stuff lately so I thought I would put my time into something a little more complicated. Like they always say, be careful what you ask for!

I started with making a muslin and taking my first stab at a perfect fit.

I found this Simplicity book from the late 60's that goes over everything you could ever want to know about dress fitting and quickly learned why dresses off the rack don't fit me.

I have narrow, sloped, rounded shoulders. I also own a large bust and a short torso with a twist of small butt and long legs. In short I have to adjust Every. Fucking. Thing.

I am doing view B, what I thought was a simple raglan long sleeve pocketed dress.

I found the ugliest fabric I had, plus an old sheet and set to work. I learned I need to take 1.5 inches out of the shoulders, and shorten the part under the bust an inch.

In the real dress I need to do the neck differently. I don't want it to end in ribbon and tie a bow to close it.

This is the fabric I'm using. It is almost 100% see through so I have to line the whole skirt as well. After all this pattern there is a 2 foot gap of just plain blue, so cutting and pattern matching was a NIGHTMARE.

I wanted the big stripes to go across my chest and through to the sleeves, but with the raglans, the angles got too hard to match it all up and I just gave up and cut plain blue sleeves.

Since I didn't finish the skirt on my muslin I ran into a surprise. A side zip that overlaps with pockets. I had some unpicking to do, but I think I got it. I still need to hand sew the zip in because I don't have the right kind of zipper foot. I like hand sewing so it's not the end of the world.

This pattern has so much to it. The gathering on the top and the skirt, the lining with darts, the pockets. Each piece takes twice as long to complete and sew together. I feel like I have been doing prep work for a week! And I still don't know if the fit adjustments will fit. I keep telling myself all I have left is BLAH. Then BLAH is really 4 more steps I didn't see coming. I just hope all this work pays off and doesn't end in a lesson learned and tears.

If you want more updates from me, you can follow me on Instagram at pocketsandsleeves or add me on Snapchat at Orangeowl4. You can always e-mail me at Pocketsandsleeves@gmail.com too.

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About Me

I only make patterns that have pockets and sleeves, and if they don't come with them I will walk you through how I added them. Take inspiration from my style, or just use me as a reference for great pattern finds, either way you will learn a thing or two from all my wins and fails from my sewing adventurers.